Taking Science to School Learning and Teaching Science in Grades K-8 (2007) / Chapter Skim
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10 Supporting Science Instruction
10 Supporting Science Instruction
Pages 296-330
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From page 296... ...
Professional development that supports student learn ing is rooted in the science that teachers teach and includes opportu nities to learn about science, about current research on how children learn science, and about how to teach science. • Achieving science proficiency for all students will require a coherent system that aligns standards, curriculum, instruction, assessment, teacher preparation, and professional development for teachers across the K-8 years.
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From page 297... ...
Thus, in addition to understanding the science content itself, effective teachers need to understand learners and pedagogy design and need to monitor students' science learning experiences. Knowledge of Science Research findings generally support the notion that higher levels of teacher subject matter knowledge contribute to higher student achievement (Chaney, 1995; Goldhaber and Brewer, 1997, 2000)
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From page 298... ...
If college courses were aligned with school curriculum and if higher quality measures of student achievement were available, one might find that there are no threshold effects or that they must be higher than suggested by these studies. There is also evidence from case studies of science teachers that teacher knowledge influences instructional practice and, in particular, that class room discourse -- an integral component of science learning environments -- is sensitive to teachers' knowledge of science (Carlsen 1988, 1992; Hashweh, 1987; Sanders, Borko, and Lockard, 1993)
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From page 299... ...
. Not surprisingly, undergraduates' and prospective science teachers' views of science reflect this emphasis on science as a body of facts and scientific practice as mechanistic applications of a sequential scientific method.
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From page 300... ...
Clearly the scientific knowledge of K-8 teachers is often quite thin. Fac tors likely to contribute to this pattern are narrowly focused undergraduate course work, insufficient teacher professional development, and a cre dentialing process that requires little of prospective K-8 science teachers.
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From page 301... ...
One source of evidence on this question is a large body of research on "teachers' dispositions," which examine teachers' espoused beliefs about science teaching and their instructional practices to make inferences about their views on learning. This research base offers very limited guidance, however.
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From page 302... ...
First, the teacher needs to get information into the mind of the child. Second, once the information is there, the challenge is how to move it to a place where it will be "stored." Teachers' beliefs about student mental models, as described in this re search, contrast with research on student learning that we have described in this report.
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From page 303... ...
In their review of the literature on prospective teachers' beliefs about multicultural issues, Bryan and Atwater (2002) conclude that most prospective science teachers enter their teacher preparation programs with little or no intercultural experience and with beliefs and assumptions that undermine the goal of providing an equitable education for all students.
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From page 304... ...
, yet there is little disagreement that teaching science to diverse student populations presents immense chal lenges, and that teachers need to be knowledgeable about both classroom level and broader societal factors that influence students' science learning. Subject Matter Knowledge for Teaching More than the sum of knowledge about science, learners, and learning, teacher knowledge is qualitatively distinct from that of mature nonteachers and disciplinary experts.
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From page 305... ...
While the logic of subject matter knowledge for teaching is persuasive, there is almost no research on the empirical link between specialized teacher subject matter knowledge and student learning.2 More than three decades of research have resulted in distinct portraits of expert/novice teachers' knowledge (Munby, Russell, and Martin, 2001) and case studies of teachers' acquisition of PCK (e.g., Zembal-Saul, Blumenfeld, and Krajcik, 2000; Smith and Neale, 1989)
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From page 306... ...
In this section we describe how teachers' experiences can be structured to support their learning, which in turn enables them to provide quality science instruction. Teachers learn continuously from their experiences in the classroom, their interactions with colleagues, and their professional development activi ties.
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From page 307... ...
; studies of District #2 in New York City (Elmore and Burney, 1997; Stein and D'Amico, 1998) ; a longitudinal study of sustained professional development by the Merck Institute for Science Education (Corcoran, McVay, and Riordan, 2003)
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From page 308... ...
In the next two sections, we extend our discussion of teachers' oppor tunities to learn in the organizational context of schools and departments and in professional development programs. We use examples to illustrate how the features listed above are enacted in professional development and to provide further evidence of the teacher and student learning effects of well-designed teacher learning opportunities.
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From page 309... ...
While organizing groups of teachers to work together can result in functional communities that focus their efforts and resources on instructional improvement and teacher learning, merely creating group structures by no means guarantees such positive outcomes. Supovitz (2002)
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From page 310... ...
Professional Development Programs Besides the school structures and norms that support quality science instruction, professional development programs also support teacher learn ing and instructional improvement. We know that supports for science teacher learning should be grounded in the work teachers do in schools and informed by local policies, constraints, and resources.
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From page 311... ...
describe an example of long-term teacher professional development that is rooted in teacher inquiry experiences. They present an in-depth longitudinal case study of how one novice elementary school teacher, Elizabeth, developed her understanding of physical science topics and science itself through her participation in workshops that engaged groups of K-8 science teachers in doing science.
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From page 312... ...
Although there is little research on science teachers' opportunities to learn student ideas, there is strong evidence from mathematics suggesting that teachers can learn how to work productively with student ideas about the subject matter. A program of research on "cognitively guided instruction" at the University of Wisconsin has shown that teacher professional develop ment designed to support understanding of student ideas can have pro found effects on teachers' knowledge and instructional practice and, impor tantly, that this knowledge translates to measurable learning gains for students (Carpenter et al., 1989; Fennema et al., 1996)
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From page 313... ...
The studies we have described highlight important features of teacher professional development: these approaches are rooted in subject matter that teachers teach, focused on student learning, rooted in activities of teachers' work, take place over extended periods of time, and are actively supported by school system administrators. Despite emerging evidence that the continuous improvement of practice and student performance requires sustained high-quality opportunities for teacher learning, few school districts provide teachers with curricular-based institutes, mentoring and coaching, and opportunities for examination of and reflection on classroom practice required to deepen their subject-matter expertise and pedagogical content knowledge.
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From page 314... ...
. Teacher Learning Opportunities That Focus on Diverse Student Groups A small number of studies examine the professional development of science teachers of racial/ethnic minority or low-income students in inner city schools and urban school districts.
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The results indicate that professional development designed to enhance teachers' content knowledge and use of standards-based teaching practices not only improved science achievement but also reduced inequities in achievement patterns for urban black students. These studies suggest that, despite disagreement among researchers on the specific qualities of science instruction that advance student learning with diverse student populations, given opportunities to learn a range of new strategies for teaching these students, teachers can improve their practice and improve student learning.
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From page 316... ...
evaluation of the urban systemic initiatives. In this context, teacher leaders did a range of things, including planning, instruction, and working in the classroom with teachers, as well as organizing and running professional development activi ties.
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(2001) investigated whether elementary schools in Chicago that had improving instructional coherence showed improvements in student achievement.
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Curriculum Materials As we have discussed, the current store of curriculum materials for K-8 science teachers is quite uneven. Analysis of science textbooks suggest that, by and large, those used in American classrooms are of a low quality.
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From page 319... ...
What is more, when teachers at a given grade level are working on topics asynchronously, it can complicate efforts to pool the intellectual resources of the group. Science teacher learning communities that collaborate on planning, teaching, and assessing science instruction will typically work on a common set of tasks that are relevant to their current unit of instruction.
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From page 320... ...
In a recently completed study, the Stanford Education Assessment Labo ratory explored Black and Wiliam's (1998) contention that formative assess ment would increase student learning by developing curriculum-embedded assessments for the Foundational Approaches to Science Teaching (FAST)
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From page 321... ...
analyzed assessments provided in middle school curriculum materials. The study included only comprehensive middle school science programs -- that is those that covered 3 years of instruction and were in wide use by school districts and states.
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From page 322... ...
Furthermore, research has identified features of quality teacher learning opportunities that can be realized through a diverse array of organizational structures (mentoring and coaching, teacher work groups, expert- and teacher-led programs of professional devel opment) combined with distinct learning outcomes (topic-specific learning strategies, conducting and teaching inquiry science, conducting science discussions, analyzing student work, planning instruction)
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From page 323... ...
In addition to significantly bolstering K-8 science teachers' opportunities to learn, schools and school systems can benefit from developing and refining instructional systems that focus and support science instruction. It may be some time before schools have and can use a comprehensive K-8 (or K-12)
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From page 324... ...
. Professional development for all teachers: Achieving educational excellence and equity in the era of accountability.
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From page 325... ...
. Linking teacher and student learning to improve professional development in systemic reform.
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From page 326... ...
. Teacher professional development to improve the science and literacy achievement of English language learners.
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Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, April, Chicago. Lareau, A
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From page 328... ...
. Teacher professional development as situated sense-making: A case study in science education.
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From page 329... ...
. The effects of professional development on science teaching practices and classroom culture.
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From page 330... ...
. Teacher learning and the acquisition of profes sional knowledge: An examination of research on contemporary professional development.
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